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January 26, 2007
TT: The very best we have
Today’s Wall Street Journal drama column starts out with a big bang—a hats-off celebration of Manhattan Theatre Club’s revival of Brian Friel’s Translations—followed by a review of Signature Theatre’s Into the Woods, the first of three reports on my recent expedition to the theaters of Washington, D.C., and its environs:The only time I don’t think Brian Friel is the best living playwright is immediately after I’ve seen a play by Tom Stoppard. That both men should be represented on Broadway this season is a boon, and though Mr. Stoppard’s “Coast of Utopia” trilogy, being both new and spectacular, will likely get most of the ink, the Manhattan Theatre Club’s revival of “Translations,” directed by Garry Hynes, deserves equal time. This production of Mr. Friel’s 1980 play, among the greatest written in the 20th century, is so comprehensively masterful that no critic, however enthusiastic, can do more than suggest its manifold virtues. Instead of reviewing it, I wish I could simply send you a ticket….
“Into the Woods,” in which Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood and Jack (the one who chopped down the beanstalk) meet in a forest and get into big trouble together, is one of Stephen Sondheim’s most frequently performed musicals, not because it’s the best but because it’s the most audience-friendly, right down to the reasonably happy ending. Perhaps Signature Theatre, a regional company whose imaginative Sondheim stagings have given it a national reputation, had that in mind when it picked Mr. Sondheim’s fractured fairy tale to open its new two-theater complex, located in an upscale suburban shopping mall not far from downtown Washington. Whatever the reason, this new production is as engaging and smartly designed as the handsome building that houses it….
No link. Buy a Journal—it’s cheap, easy to find, and full of goodies—or, better yet, go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, a wise decision that will give you immediate access to my column and all the rest of the Journal’s Friday arts package. (If you’re already a subscriber, the column is here.)
Posted January 26, 2007 12:00 PM
